A variety of different hand-operated tools are commonly used for lawn and gardening tasks. Such as, for example, bulb planters are commonly used for planting flower bulbs. These bulb planters typically have a tool head, in the form cylindrical or frusto-conical shaped tube, with a handle rigidly attached to one end of the tube. The tool head is typically metal while the handle is typically wood but is sometimes metal. The tube is pushed into the ground, rotated and or twisted about a central vertical axis and then pulled out to remove a soil plug from the ground so that a plant or flower bulb can be placed in the hole created by removing the soil plug and then covered with the soil plug.
While these prior bulb planters may be adequate to perform their intended planting tasks under some conditions, they can be difficult and uncomfortable to grasp and hold, particularly with two hands, and can require the operator to have a relatively large amount of hand strength. Additionally, it can be difficult to remove the soil plug from the cylinder once the tool head has been removed from the ground. This can particularly be a concern when the hand tools are used by women, elderly, or handicapped users. Additionally, there is a never ending desire to improve certain characteristics of such bulb planters such as, for example, quality, reliability, versatility, weather-resistance, high strength, low weight, and low manufacturing costs. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for improved bulb planters.